Skepticism

EVENTS

OH NO KEVIN SORBO!

He just gets worse and worse. He’s now defending Mel Gibson and Passion of the Christ (hey, it made lots of money!) and he just casually mentions something damned ugly.

Oh, he got attacked when he was shooting ‘The Passion’, Sorbo agreed before continuing, From the Jewish community, saying ‘look at the way you’re portraying us,’ I mean, I go, okay, news bulletin: you did kill Jesus.

Even the slightest awareness of the history of that accusation ought to give you pause — it’s blatantly anti-semitic and has been used for centuries to justify persecution. What’s next, Kevin Sorbo? Blood libel? The Protocols of the Elders of Zion?

Scientists for sure. Gays for sure. Women, children, college students, Democrats, Moslems, other nonxians. The usual pantheon of groups that collectively make up the vast majority of the human species.

I am amused by supposed Christians who complain about anyone having killed Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to believe that god arranged the whole episode, and that Jesus’s death was voluntary and necessary. Otherwise, no Christianity. To say that it was the will of the Jews, Romans, or Judas, other than as puppets, is to deny the central message and point of Christianity. In other words, most Christians don’t really believe in Christianity.
Of course, that’s just as well, as Richard Carrier’s book, On the Historicity of Jesus, makes it clear that there is no significant reason to believe that Christ was ever anything but an outer-space myth, who lived above the moon but below the door in the firmament where god lets the rain out, where the stars are all attached.
Now, whom shall we blame for the aquatic pollution caused when Hercules cleaned the legendary stables with a river?

Never mind all the Christians who killed untold numbers of people over the past centuries, let’s focus on the Jews who handed over *one* guy to the authorities (who were the ones who actually did the deed), a guy who, by their own account, was unique among all the abovementioned victims of religious persecution for rising from the dead three days later a little holey but none the worse for wear.

To believe in Jesus is to believe that god arranged the whole episode, and that Jesus’s death was voluntary and necessary.

Well, yes, it even says as much in the bible. The blame game is played by most xians though, the fault is never, ever god’s, but the person or persons blatantly manipulated by said god. When you read the bible, you come across several instances where Yahweh hardens the heart of a particular person as a justification for doing terrible things. Frinst., Yahweh hardened the Pharaoh’s heart from 6 to 15 times (depending on which bible version, and said interpretation of bible verses.)

Then there’s poor ol’ Judas, given no choice in his actions, and for his oh so necessary role, gets eternal torture for committing suicide. It’s all a massive, steaming pile of bullshit.

I’m sure good ol’ Kevin will defend all of Mel’s rants about “The Jews” as well. Because that’s just what good conservative Christians do: blame the Jews for killing their lord and savior, justify their rants as Not Politically Correct and therefore Cool and Edgy, and then whine about how they are being persecuted for being too Cool and Edgy. But remember, the filthy libruls that don’t mindlessly support Israel are the REAL anti-Semites!

I am amused by supposed Christians who complain about anyone having killed Jesus. To believe in Jesus is to believe that god arranged the whole episode, and that Jesus’s death was voluntary and necessary. Otherwise, no Christianity.

Come to think of it, shouldn’t they be happy their savior was killed? Isn’t the salvation of mankind dependent on Jesus dying and raising from the dead?

Tony!, they’re Christians. Don’t try to use logic and facts against them, they are immune. The same obvious logic is at play every time they whine and wretch and grit their teeth about what a Traitor Judas was. Jesus was persecuted, doesn’t matter if it was necessary and part of the plan and for the greater good and it didn’t have any real effect on Jesus himself, because BAAAAAAAW WE ARE SO PERSECUTED BAAAAAW. Fuck all the facts and logicks, they must weep for poor defenseless Mangod Jeebus.

Well, they set him up. They got the Romans to do the dirty work. Let’s kill all the Romans!

As for “the Jews”, there were so many conflicting groups that when the Romans decided it was time to clear out Jerusalem, they just waited outside of town while “the Jews” killed each other off. Hardly a monolithic group. (Monty Python: “Splitters!)

Come to think of it, shouldn’t they be happy their savior was killed? Isn’t the salvation of mankind dependent on Jesus dying and raising from the dead?

It’s all very fugue-like. Happy cause saved, sad cause killed, happy cause arranged, sad cause sinned, mad cause they did it, happy cause they wrote the book (kinda), love Abraham, hate descendants… as Augustine said
“For God judged it better to bring good out of evil than not to permit any evil to exist,” or the liturgy’s
“O happy fault, O necessary sin of Adam, which gained for us so great a Redeemer!”
All of which might make sense in purely human terms (like… “I met my wonderful wife when she was working in the prison cafeteria,” or something) but it all seems like a radical non starter once an omni(kitchensink) deity is involved.

And, per Bill Hicks, isn’t being too happy about the whole thing maybe a little rude? … “A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It’s like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.”

Because you play Hercules on one show and suddenly you are entitled to be involved in all projects associated with Hercules. He tries to play it cool, calling it “stupid” several times by saying that he was so popular in the 90’s and they would have done better if he made a cameo or some shit. No, really, it is just that Sorbo wants publicity and he will probably go on a rant about how he is “SO PERSECUTED, YOU GUYS!!!” the minute he has an audience where that narrative would be more fruitful than trying to ineptly play the aloof “fine, your funeral” routine.

We need to stop paying attention to him. He wants the publicity to get some last jolt of energy into his dying career. There is no real reason to actually give a fuck, as far as I can tell.

I think it’s silly to temporarily kill a third of oneself. It came as a surprise to the temporarily killed third too.

But wait, was it a surprise? He knew it all (and didn’t) because he was divine (and wasn’t). What I always wonder about is where the divine bit (which he was, fully, and not, completely) went when he was dead? Seems like things might go funny around the shop with bits of the proprietor missing. Sure, only a day or so, but the invoices and shipping are massive (or they aren’t, and time away isn’t a problem [and is?]).

Some (maybe many) resolve this with a descent into Hell, unless as others say, his descent would have meant that the sacrifice wasn’t accepted by the Father, because just suffering and dying, which happens all the time, because badness (when you know you’ll be right back in glory, while you probably also don’t) was enough, even though it wasn’t really all that special in the big picture (depending on who you actually care about). In which case the shop was fine.

But man… if it was Hell, that was one weird day. (I’d say horrible, which I’m sure it was, but it’s that pretty much all the time.) ((Unless it isn’t, which I’ve also heard.))

It’s such a bizarre comment. I know it’s born out of antisemitism and Christian fundamentalism, okay, but it doesn’t make any sense. It assumes that “the Jews” is some immortal, monolithic entity that has a singular will, a single hive mind. It’s like telling a Christian that “you murdered countless people in crusades, wars, inquisitions etc.”. And I doubt Sorbo would like that comment.

Christians* on the alledged execution of an alleged trouble-making Rabbi in 33 CE Palestine: “Sure, he was executed by the authorities, but he was first tried and then handed over by the local council of Temple Elders. As such, all Jews who ever lived and will live since are guilty of this crime.”

Christians* on the very real torture and gruesome executions of thousands upon thousands of alleged heretics: “Hey, those people were condemned by the local government. The church trials were only to establish whether they were heretics or not. The church trials never condemned people to death. That was done by the governments. And beside, those people weren’t condemned for their heresy but for treason against their country. Also, those trials were held by Christan Sect X, not my sect. And that was like 500 years ago. it’s not fair to judge those societies by today’s standard. Also … you’re a poopyhead.”

* Yes, I know… #NotAllChristians. But a non-0 portion of them have certainly shown this behaviour both here and on different other sites.

Chigau, more on heifers:
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“According to ibn Abbas and other scholars: An old man from among the children of Israel was very rich, and he had some nephews and he was killed by one of them. His corpse was placed in by his brother’s door. Then disputes ensued and they asked prophet Musa (Moses) for help. When they found the yellow cow per Musa’s command, he instructed them to slaughter the cow and struck part of it on the deceased. The dead old man came back to life. The prophet Musa asked who killed him and he said his nephew and he died again.”
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Moses: Raising zombies to acquire legal witnesses of murder 3000 years before Anita Blake did the same. And Moses was never involved in bad porn (yes Laurell K. Hamilton, I am looking at you!)

richardemmanuel @ 34:
When he killed a third of himself and came back, it was like a quantum energy loan, only in reverse. His total mass/energy remained the same and quantum fluctuations finally made the missing third pop back.

“the divine bit (which he was, fully, and not, completely) ”
The book Misquoting Jesus shows there were lots of sects which between them advocated every single possible explanation.
Adoptionists, anti-adoptionists and a gazillion other groups.

Addentum to @ 56:
ibn Abbas forgot to mention you must pour the blood from the sacrificed animal to close a magic circle around the corpse. Otherwise you have no control over the zombie. Same thing goes for demons, fallen angels and other summonings.

Jesus? Jesus who? Why are people getting worked up about the details of a mythical figure anyway? Surely the argument is not, “It wasn’t actually the Jews, it was the Romans,” but, “It never even actually happened!”

It’s like getting worked up over the suggestion that Peter Pan had seven fingers on one hand.

I just “love” the use of language here. It isn’t some Jews are responsible for Christ’s death but “the” Jews. Like all Jews everywhere are collectively responsible. Of course common sense dictates that only a small minority of Jews could have had any responsibility for Jesus’ death. But that is ignored and we get this collective responsibility bullshit. Note that not only is not bound by geography but it is not bound by time. All Jews everywhere at anytime are “responsible” for Jesus’ death.

Of course the patent absurdity of blaming all Jews at the time and all Jews since goes right past Sorbo. That aside why doesn’t he blame Italians in the same fashion? After all the Roman Soldiers and Pilate weren’t exactly helpless here.

Of course the Gospel accounts tend to downplay Pilate and the Roman’s role. They try to make it look like Pilate was reluctantly forced to do it. Of course this goes against accounts of Pilate’s rule of Judea like Josephus, Philo and Tacitus which portray Pilate has brutal and ruthless. That he was much like the reluctant figure shown in the Gospel accounts is unlikely. The fact is crucifixion is Roman form of punishment used against rebels, potential and real, also criminals and slaves.

Sorbo is mouthing the deicide lie that has poisoned things for c. 2,000 years.

This is collective punishment which is bad enough. But it is carried out for all generations to come, punishing the children for the sins and crimes of their parents. The bible is full of this sort of punishment. It starts in the first book with Adam and Eve condemning the human species for all eternity by eating a magic apple.

Even we humans don’t do this any more. (Very often anyway and at least, we know it is wrong and pointless.)

We are better than the god of the bible. The bar is low here but still… And this is one reason why xian morality is an oxymoron.

I preferred Sorbo when he just played a chauvanist idiot on television, rather than his current schtick of broadcasting to the world that he in actuality is several different shades of bigoted arsehat all at the same time.

It is one thing to drone on about your enthusiasm for the fictional son of an imaginary god that may have been loosely based on the entirely non-supernatural person of a first century rabbi with messianic delusions, but if you are honestly too stupid and/or fueled by sectarian hatred to realise how incredibly dangerous the ‘christ killers’ lie really is, then you probably shouldn’t be out on your own.

Isn’t the blatant worship of money as truth the opposite of what Christians are supposed to do?

The way I interpreted history, the first Christians were an apocalyptic sect of Judaism who thought the “evil” world was going to end within their lifetimes with the “perfect” world being ushered in to all those who grovelled enough. They didn’t shun wealth because hoarding it was wrong and economically disadvantaged those without it, but because it distracted people from worshiping Yahweh and showing him how horribly, terribly sorry they were for losing the Promised Land to foreign invaders and pleeeeeeeease, pretty please, can we get into your “Kingdom of Heaven” when you come back?

Since then, like all ideologies, Christianity was molded and shaped over the centuries by history. Yes, later Christians paid lip service to helping the poor, but nothing was really done about it (Why? Jesus will be returning any minute now.) and ultimately poverty was blamed on sin and being out of God’s favor rather than socio-economic forces. The modern idea of proto-socialist Christians along with Jesus-as-hippie (when he was probably more other cult leaders like L. Ron Hubbard or Charles Manson) seems very much a modern invention of left-leaning believers who think they need divine authority to promote altruism and the welfare state much like right-wing Christians use god’s command to support their politics.

We are better than the god of the bible. The bar is low here but still… And this is one reason why xian morality is an oxymoron.

I would go further than saying it is a low bar; I am left wondering if it is even possible to be worse and more morally reprehensible than the xian god myth. Whatever evil you can dream up for an imagined villain to cackle manically over, Yahweh always seems to have gotten there first, and he always seems to have gone big. You have already covered grossly unethical collective punishment and the punishing of future generations for the imagined crimes of their forebears ‘unto the seventh generation’, but whichever way you look at, Yahweh has the market cornered on evil.

Murder? Oh yeah, and not just the murder of individuals (though he has a hand in that too through his followers), but genocide – in the bible Yahweh both instructs his followers to commit genocide and even has his apparently severely visually impaired angel of death kill all the first born children in Eqypt except for those households with the correct symbol drawn in ram’s blood on the door (you just have to love biblical blood magic – the xians are as good as putting up bill boards advertising their cultists of an evil god cedentials with this stuff). Should your caligraphy be off, or should you sacrifice a calf to appease your bloodthirsty god by mistake, then you are in trouble, and all this when Yahweh supposedly could have effortlessly compelled the Pharaoh to play nice without harming anyone at all, but he chose mass child slaughter instead. It doesn’t get much more damning than that, and all this before we even get to the great flood supposedy killing every human on the planet bar Noah and his family, not to mention wiping out huge numbers of animals entirely blameless for the notional ‘sins’ of humanity. And let’s not forget the whole cursing all life with death in the first place, and all over dietary choices.

Rape? The bible is full of it, from Mary’s consent-absent magical impregnation (even if the biomechanical specifics do not fall within conventional concepts of rape, it is still depicts a violation of a woman’s bodily and reproductive autonomy without her consent, and that amounts to rape in my mind), through pious men offering their daughters to be gang raped in order to protect a male traveller on the road, to god declaring to the Israelites that they can take the women and female children of their conqured enemies that are still virgins and essentially do with them as they please. And that is just a very brief selection.

Slavery? Directly endorsed by the bible on multiple occasions so long as it is the ‘chosen people’ who are doing the enslaving.

Racism? Hammite origin of races. ‘Nuff said.

Torture? It is practically Yahweh’s pass time even with regard to his most pious followers (just ask Lott; life capriciously ruined by a ‘loving’ god all essentailly over a bet with satan), and certainly his default punishment for anyone who steps even marginally out of line with his ridiculous and self contradictory rules, even by accident, is torment for all eternity at the hands of his personal live-in torturer (who Yahweh also betrayed and manipulated – as an omniscient being, Yahweh must have already known that Lucifer would launch the war in heaven before he even created him. So Yahweh actually deliberately set the devil up in order to create hell and populate it with demons, and he would later pull the same stunt again with Adam and Eve, also while knowing the outcome in advance. Which one is the Prince of Lies again?)

Misogyny? The bible drips with it from almost every page. The biblical concept of marriage alone is a patriarchal horror show, and that is before we get to the whole ‘thou shalt not suffer a witch to live’ business that was used to justify gendered violence for centuries .

Homophobia? The bible is practically the original textbook when it comes to hating gay people. It directly condemns gay men, and it doesn’t take much effort for fervent xian homophobes to extend that to the entire LGBTQ community.

It is hard to imagine a more repugnant fictional character than Yahweh. Being better than him is no acheivement, because it would take dedicated work to even get close to being as bad as him. And Xians consider this imaginary ethical abomination to be th well spring of all morality? It is no surprise their priorities are so skewed.

knowknot @ # 26: … per Bill Hicks, … … “A lot of Christians wear crosses around their necks. You think when Jesus comes back he ever wants to see a fucking cross? It’s like going up to Jackie Onassis wearing a rifle pendant.”

Shame on Bill Hicks for lifting one of Lenny Bruce’s sharpest schticks!

Of course, the entire myth is completely incoherent anyway. The Pharisees didn’t have to go to the Roman authorities to execute someone for blasphemy (the alleged charge against him in the religious court). They could have had him stoned to death and the Romans would not have blinked an eye. That’s just one of a thousand incoherencies.

They killed Jesus? No. They didn’t. I know, I was there, for I have been alive these past three millennia, and saw that none of the Immortal Jews were there at the time to commit the act – and, certainly, it would be wildly irrational to hold those who were born several centuries after the fact accountable for events that occurred before their respective births. It was actually a talking camel that did it. It had a right hoof on, because Jesus said it couldn’t walk through one of Jerusalem’s smaller gates, which it took as a dig at its weight. Man, it was embarrassing when the camel realised that he was making a point about theology!

Gee Kevin, I remember that a lot of people were upset that Mel wasn’t using the Bible, like he said he was, for his source material, but instead using the ranting writings of a self-flagellating, nutcase 19th century nun. And how Mel denied that repeatedly, calling those people out for lying, for months and months, until it turned out that Mel [i]was[/i] using the rantings of a self-flagellating, nutcase 19th century nun as his source material and had been lying all that time.

It all just adds to the delicious irony of the alliance between extreme right-wing Xians and hard-line Zionism… Allies with very different views of the end game. Happily, of course, the imagined end game will never arrive– on the evidence Jesus is less likely to manage a comeback before the gnab gib than the great prophet Zarquon.

The modern idea of proto-socialist Christians along with Jesus-as-hippie (when he was probably more other cult leaders like L. Ron Hubbard or Charles Manson) seems very much a modern invention of left-leaning believers who think they need divine authority to promote altruism and the welfare state much like right-wing Christians use god’s command to support their politics.

Sure the blood libel is blatantly antisemitic and has been used to justify the persecution and murder of Jews – and it’s also absolutely supported by the text of the Bible. The Gospels devote an enormous amount of time to making the argument (seldom directly but never exactly subtly, either) that when the Jews refused to accept Jesus as Messiah and allowed him to be crucified, they dropped their end of the covenant with Jehovah and lost their status as God’s Chosen. This creates the possibility of a new covenant with those who do accept the J-man into their hearts, but more importantly, it means that whatever ill fortune befalls the Jews afterwards is their own damn fault. (And of course there was plenty of ill fortune befalling the Jews right around that time – the destruction of the temple, the end of the Herodean dynasty and Jewish self-rule, the fall of Masada, etc…)

That’s what the meaning of the infamous “fig tree” story is – Jesus comes upon the tree when it is not yet ready to bear fruit, and so he curses it to wither. Likewise the Jews got their Messiah before they were ready to accept him, and are therefore destroyed. (But of course, someday they will accept him, and then the whole world will be destroyed).

This is yet another of those areas where I find my reading of the Bible is actually pretty much in line with the fundamentalists’. The difference is, I read this stuff and find it repulsive, they read it and think it’s glorious.

According to the latest from Bart D. Ehrman there is a huge problem with the way the bible depicted the crucifixion. If you were crucified as a crime against the emperor. Which claiming your king would definitely have been. Then your body was to be left upon the cross for the buzzards to eat, you received no burial rights. And this is backed by historical documents explaining the right to burial and this specific exception. Given that Pontius Pilate, is unanimously accepted by historians as an extremely cruel emperor, it is not likely he would have taken pity upon Jesus for claiming he was king of the Jews, and that leaves no need to barter for his execution (letting the murder go free to punish Jesus). But to say he would let him be taken down from the cross after three days, given the severity of his crime, even I doubt that. And if he didn’t get buried in a tomb, then?…

Hey, isn’t the alleged “fact” (according to the myth anyway), that the jesus didn’t die. He’s was supposedly the first recyclable sustainable magic trick performer and he’s supposedly not deceased. How many times do you hear jesus followers tell each other in a desperate attempt to confirm each others beliefs that jesus love you? Seems the only thing the jesus loved is death. It’s the only thing he’s done successfully.

chigau
Citation for which part? There’s certainly a lot of antisemitism in the U.S., and the U.S. definitely supports Israel pretty heavily (both material support by the U.S. government and political/rhetorical support by many Americans). Which of those are you questioning?

Was F.O. referring to the US government or US society? If society, then there is both support for Israel and antisemitism. If government, I am uncertain about antisemitism, but yeah, there’s support for Israel.

That’s what the meaning of the infamous “fig tree” story is – Jesus comes upon the tree when it is not yet ready to bear fruit, and so he curses it to wither. Likewise the Jews got their Messiah before they were ready to accept him, and are therefore destroyed.

Since I’ve just been listening to Richard Carrier on this very topic — that doesn’t quite match what he says (citing “Sacred Violence and the Messiah” by RG Hamerton-Kelly):

The fig tree episode is interleaved with the scourging of the moneychangers in the Temple, and both stories are sort-of about the same thing. The fig tree represents the Temple sacrifice system — it is no longer “in season”; its time is past; it is withered from the roots. No-one will eat from its fruit again because Jesus — the subject of the narratives — destroys the old system and his sacrifice replaces the Temple sacrifices. Of course, the narrative is also informed by the knowledge that the Temple was already destroyed at the time that these stories were being written.

The fig tree represents the Temple sacrifice system — it is no longer “in season”; its time is past; it is withered from the roots. No-one will eat from its fruit again because Jesus — the subject of the narratives — destroys the old system and his sacrifice replaces the Temple sacrifices.

Now I’m wondering why, during all those years, it wasn’t obvious that the Fig Tree was a reference to the temple. Especially what with the whole “he who has ears” thing. It was about the Freaking Temple. Like asymetrical alliteration is so difficult. It’s not like I was distracted by having to read the bible in Urdu. Or Greek. Or even Aramaic. Those people never had a chance.

But honestly, I’m fine with it being the temple. It’s just so completely bizarre to me now (really, always was) that this revelatory book is so, full of stuff that requires years of study in antiblemic geblometry and daftorential clabbulus to make sense of what God was mumbling about.

I wrote a piece about kinda this once… included the following super cryptic lines, about being thankful for theology:
had darkness been mapped out / by minds dim as my own / imagine how the sons would be confused / all the firmament to burn / the oceans to be steamed / but no edge to throw pebbles from… / were gods made by fools like me / with their intentions undefined / how might the ocean be held certain from the shore? / yes, thank heaven for the borders / and the bore /
or something like that.

Yes Kevin, that was me and my buddies David and Mordy, and our super-slick time machine. We do it once a generation so it covers every Jew ever for all time. Even the ones from before Jesus was born, even from before we identified as Jews. Because all Jews always killed Jesus. He was just that hard to take down. How many Jews does it take to kill Jesus? All of them. It takes a lot of mind control to hold him down while forcing the local Roman powers to do our bidding. So we three run the psi-conduit from the Zionist Conspiracy through the time vortex.

F @122: Ooh, ooh, I saw this one, where the Doctor ends up juggling meat and milk plates, and then puts them back all wrong, and Jesus’ Mom totally goes immaculate defenestration on his ass? That was so funny, and kind of poignant when Jo Grant climbed up onto a cross and starts shouting ‘I am Spartacus!’

I’ve always thought the fig tree was a parlor trick. I do believe there was a historical Jesus, and there are many incidents which indicate the use of faith healing, magic spells, and general trickery. Of course these may have been borrowed from other magicians and glommed onto Jesus, whether or not you think Jesus was a historical figure. It’s also at least compatible with Jesus having delusions of grandeur and imagining he’d been chosen to crush the Roman empire and create a Jewish theocracy.

In this case I think it was just something Jesus could do and it was a sort of vague threat, an expression of disapproval. The rest of it is obscure without the context. If it is supposed to relate to the attack on the temple, keep in mind that this would have been a small army of armed thugs attempting to occupy a space about the size of 20 football fields that may have had as many as 300,000 pilgrims in it at the time. In that context it starts to sound like a pep talk to people who know they might get killed.